At the headwaters of the Mississippi, the average surface speed of the water is near 1.2 miles per hour - roughly one-third as fast as people walk. At New Orleans, on 2/24/2003, the speed of the river was 3 miles per hour.

A raindrop falling in Lake Itasca would arrive at the Gulf of Mexico in about 90 days.

The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area maintains its length at 2,350 miles.

At Lake Itasca, the river is between 20-30 feet wide, the narrowest stretch for its entire length. The Mississippi is more than four miles wide at Lake Onalaska. Near LaCrosse, Wisconsin, Mississippi water held behind Lock and Dam #7 and water held back by damming the Black River combine to form this broad reach of the Mississippi River.*

At its headwaters, the Mississippi is less than 3 feet deep. The river's deepest section is between Governor Nicholls Wharf and Algiers Point in New Orleans where it is 200 feet deep.

The elevation of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca is 1,475 feet above sea level. It drops to 0 feet above sea level at the Gulf of Mexico. More than half of that drop in elevation occurs within the state of Minnesota.*

As a major conduit of a vast interior waterway, the Mississippi River has been the object of wars, the provider for the heartland of a nation, and a cradle for cultures and communities that have grown, prospered, and died on its banks. The river remains an enduring dimension of American culture and an integral part of the American mystique.*

Jonathan H. Green makes one of the earliest written references to Poker in 1834. In his writing, Green mentions rules to what he called the "cheating game," which was then being played on Mississippi riverboats. He soon realized that his was the first such reference to the game, and since it was not mentioned in the current American Hoyle, he chose to call the game Poker. - PokerPages.com

* Facts provided from the National Park Service web site.

The Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Las Aventuras De Tom Sawyer, classic novel by Mark Twain shares early American adventures on the Mississippi River.

Travel Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri for Upper Mississippi fun. Travel Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana for a new experience on the lower Great River.

News:

Weekend Getaway

Davenport: Visit with da Vinci

Posted: Jan. 12, 2008

When you think of wings over the Quad Cities, you might think of the many
bald eagles that live in the area, soaring over the Mississippi River. They make
this area their home, even in winter.

But visit the area now and you'll encounter wings of a totally different
sort: a replica of a glider designed by Leonardo da Vinci is among the many
flying machines and models that greet visitors as they enter Davenport's Putnam
Museum.

The Quad Cities straddle the Mississippi River; Davenport is the largest of
the four, which also include Bettendorf in Iowa, and on the Illinois side,
Moline and Rock Island. Davenport has a population similar to Green Bay.

QUINCY, Ill. — In the early days, the ribbon of muddy water hugging
this city's western edge carried steamboat traffic that served as an engine for
growth. In 1993, the river swelled beyond its banks and threatened to wash the
city away.

Today, officials see new potential in the Mississippi River — cleaner energy.

Initiated by a desire to reduce its own electricity bills and cut pollution, the
city of Quincy is pursuing plans to build hydroelectric plants at three existing
Mississippi River locks and dams owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In
total, they would be able to generate enough electricity to light all of the
city's 16,000 homes.

"The river has always been an integral part of this city," Mayor John A. Spring
said in an interview at City Hall. "We all take it for granted, but it has the
power to produce a commodity that will help us."

The effort seems to be well timed. In 2005, Illinois enacted a law requiring
that 8 percent of the state's electricity come from renewable resources by 2013.
And last year's steep rise in electric rates makes such projects more appealing,
both economically and in terms of public support.

It's unusual for a city to look at developing hydro plants, especially one that
doesn't already operate a municipal utility. But developers are showing a
renewed interest in projects from Minneapolis to New Orleans as energy demand
and prices continue rise along with concerns over emissions of carbon dioxide, a
heat-trapping gas emitted from coal-fired power plants, factories and automobile
tailpipes.

The city began pursuing the idea not long into Spring's term as mayor when an
engineer friend approached him with a 1983 Army Corps of Engineers report that
identified Mississippi Lock and Dam No. 20 in Canton, Mo., No. 21 in Quincy and
22 in Saverton, Mo., as promising sites for hydropower projects.

Spring, a former science teacher at Parkway North High School in Creve Coeur,
saw the potential to both cut the city's electric bill and make money by selling
surplus power to local utilities. He persuaded the City Council to seek
preliminary permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which the
city received in late 2006, and to hire engineers to update the 25-year-old
Corps of Engineers study.

The project would take almost a decade to complete and retrofit existing dams
with turbines that would cost an estimated $180 million plus $3 million to
prepare the license applications, Spring said. The next major steps are
obtaining approval from the Corps of Engineers and an operating license from
FERC, which regulates most of the nation's hydropower projects.

If it obtains a federal license, Quincy has a range of options that include
developing the project on its own or selling one or more licenses to private
developers.

The Corps of Engineers, in general, supports hydropower projects as they don't
affect river navigation, said spokesman Ron Fournier of the Corps' Rock Island
District.

"Every single dam we have is being looked at for that sort of thing," said
Fournier. "But the idea comes up and it usually fades away."

Harnessing the Mississippi's flow to generate electricity isn't new. AmerenUE's
134-megawatt hydropower plant at Keokuk, Iowa, began operating in 1913. But its
history dates back to 1836, when Robert E. Lee did a survey for the War
Department that called attention to the power potential of that section of the
Mississippi.

The upper Mississippi has relatively few hydroelectric plants. Permitting a new
hydroelectric plant takes years, and efforts frequently are opposed by groups
concerned about fish and wildlife habitat.

The geology of the Midwest also is an obstacle: River beds are flat enough that
the force of flowing water may not be adequate to generate sufficient
electricity to justify construction costs.

LeClaire, Iowa, a city of about 3,000 residents just north of the Quad Cities,
set out in 1980 to develop a hydropower project at Mississippi Lock and Dam No.
14, just north of Davenport, Iowa. The city obtained a license in 1993, but the
project never advanced because costs ballooned to a point where the city
couldn't find a buyer for the electricity.

Specifically, the need to install a fish screen at the dam would have reduced
efficiency of the plant and increased the costs by almost 60 percent to $110
million — too expensive even given today's energy prices.

"The thing is still not economically viable," said Edwin ­Choate, LeClaire's
city administrator. "I just don't see it happening on this site."

Despite the challenges, a confluence of factors — rising power prices, renewable
energy mandates in Illinois and elsewhere, and a growing likelihood that the
federal government will regulate carbon dioxide emissions — has developers
taking another look at dozens of potential sites on the upper Mississippi River.

Brookfield Power, a unit of Canada's Brookfield Asset Management Inc.,
identified more than 30 sites at existing Army Corps of Engineers locks and dams
in the Mississippi Valley and other rivers with hydropower potential, said Jeff
Auser, vice president of generation development for the eastern United States.
The company, which owns 3,600 megawatts of hydroelectric generation in the U.S.,
Canada and Brazil, will spend the next 10 months taking a closer look at each
one to determine which projects to pursue.

St. Louis-based AmerenUE has considered adding more hydroelectric generating
capacity at existing locks and dams to meet rising energy demand, but the
utility must do further study to see if it's economically and technically
feasible, spokeswoman Susan Gallagher said.

Back in Quincy, the city's efforts are backed by a majority of residents and
there's been strong interest from utilities in the region, including more than a
dozen that sent representatives to a meeting last year, Spring said.

Some of the utilities already have expressed interest in purchasing power or
even taking a stake in the project, he said.

The mayor knows the process of developing a hydroelectric plant on the
Mississippi is as long and winding as the river itself. But he's taking it one
step at a time.